Is $1 billion school aid increase 'not enough'?

Thursday

Jan 19, 2017 at 12:01 AMJan 19, 2017 at 10:12 AM

Unlike last year, school state aid numbers were released alongside Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive budget this week – and education aid for districts across the state is slated to increase by $1 billion.

Alissa Scott @OD_Scott

Unlike last year, school state aid numbers were released alongside Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive budget this week — and education aid for districts across the state is slated to increase by $1 billion.

Though that represents a cumulative 31 percent increase over six years, it's slightly less than last year's projected increase, which amounted to a 6.5 percent gain over the prior year.

And while district leaders begin analyzing how these numbers will affect their upcoming budgets, area education supporters say it's not enough.

"Gov. Cuomo is offering only 10 cents on the dollar for high-need schools after pledging during his State of the State that he would tackle separate and unequal education in New York public schools," said Jasmine Gripper, legislative director for the Alliance for Quality Education, a coalition pressing the state to providing high quality public education.

"By only proposing to fund 10 percent of the foundation aid owed to schools, Gov. Cuomo specifically shortchanges students in poverty and students of color," Gripper said. "The budget proposal will perpetuate systemic racism and economic injustice in school funding."

The aid increase represents a 4.1 percent jump over last year, including $961 million for school aid, bringing the new school aid to $25.6 billion. The plan also invests $163 million to make college tuition free for middle class families at SUNY and CUNY colleges.

Last year, Cuomo waited until the Legislature approved an education reform package he proposed before releasing the school aid numbers in late March.

"Education used to be funded at all sorts of different amounts in the past," Cuomo said as he unveiled his proposed budget. "A few years ago, we came up with a formula, an inflation formula for education, and we said the state would fund education at that formula amount so local school districts across the state could then plan. This budget funds it at that growth cap, which is 3.9 percent plus an additional $40 million."

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While detailed budget estimates have not yet been released, the biggest local state aid distributions include:

* Utica: $138,139,395, which last year was slated to receive $104,794,168 in aid. It was a nearly 6.5 percent increase over the previous year.

* Rome: $72,595,700, which last year was projected to receive $59,275,512, a 1.8 percent increase.

* Central Valley: $37,007,603, which last year was projected to receive $29,894,032, a 1.08 percent increase over the year prior.

Of the nearly 30 local school districts, none are projected to received a decrease. That's consistent across the state, said Rick Timbs, executive director of the Statewide Schools Finance Consortium.

"It seems like there's been some attempt to help out by giving everybody some type of increase, but it's still a far cry from what some districts need; it's not enough," Timbs said. "The state is so far behind making things equitable. It's a heavy lift and we need a better start than that."

While the Utica City School District, where more than 10,000 students are enrolled, receives the largest allotment in the Madison-Herkimer-Oneida county region, Superintendent Bruce Karam said it looks like it received less foundation aid than last year.

“We received our school district’s state aid revenue numbers (Wednesday) morning," Karam said. "Since then, the district has been carefully analyzing these figures in order to finalize our budget proposal for the 2017-2018 school year. A preliminary review indicates that we received a smaller increase in foundation aid revenue as compared to last year. We will know the full impact in the next couple of days once we have finished analyzing all of the information, including what was presented ... in the governor’s budget address”.